August 12th, 2021 - 5:00 pm
Please join us Thursday, August 12, at 5 p.m. Eastern for the 2021 History Book Festival’s live, online event with Laura Arnold Leibman discussing her new book Once We Were Slaves: The Extraordinary Journey of a Multiracial Jewish Family (Oxford University Press, 2021). This presentation is co-sponsored by the Seaside Jewish Community of Rehoboth Beach.
With the support of our presenting sponsors—Delaware Humanities and The Lee Ann Wilkinson Group, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices I Gallo Realty—we are delighted to offer our 2021 events free of charge. However, registration is required.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Blanche Moses, a descendent of one of this country’s most prominent Jewish families, was researching her family history when she made an astounding discovery: her grandmother and great-uncle were not Sephardic Jews but actually began their lives as poor Christian slaves in Barbados. Sarah and Isaac Brandon transformed themselves, becoming free, wealthy, Jewish, and — at times — white. Their story sheds new light on the fluidity of race, and the role of religion in racial shift, in the first half of the 19th century.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Laura Arnold Leibman is a Professor of English and Humanities at Reed College in Portland, Ore. She is the author of The Art of the Jewish Family: A History of Women in Early New York in Five Objects, and Messianism, Secrecy and Mysticism: A New Interpretation of Early American Jewish Life.
PURCHASE THE BOOK
Copies of Once We Were Slaves: The Extraordinary Journey of a Multiracial Jewish Family are available from Browseabout Books in Rehoboth Beach, official bookseller of the History Book Festival, and biblion in Lewes. Each copy comes with a signed archival bookplate.